


Winterfest

by Curley_Green



Category: The Faculty (1998)
Genre: High School, M/M, School Dance, Teen Angst, Teen Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-26
Updated: 2012-04-26
Packaged: 2017-11-04 08:34:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,025
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/391865
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Curley_Green/pseuds/Curley_Green
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Zeke decides it's time to give Casey a little advice.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Winterfest

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the CZ 12 Days of Christmas Challenge by aliensouldream. Prompt was 'dance', which I took to mean the event, not the action.

The gym had been transformed. A few months ago, Marybeth had been chasing Casey across the slick hardwood floors as he threaded his way behind the accordion bleachers.  
  
Now the bleachers had been repaired. The walls of the gym were covered in paper snowflakes and long tables holding punch and cookies were covered in glitter and snow from a spray can. A DJ was set up in the corner playing a variety of radio hits for students to dance to.   
  
Delilah was the head of the planning committee for the Winterfest Dance, so, naturally, everything was perfect. That included her date.  
  
Casey had managed to escape the oppressive heat of a hundred bodies pressed close together on the dance floor under the guise of getting drinks. Delilah was dancing in the center of a circle of cheerleaders and barely seemed to notice he was gone, which was funny considering all the trouble she'd gone through to dress him so they matched, make sure he got her the right sort of corsage, and had the right sort of limousine to drive them to the dance and the after party she'd arranged for 'close friends'. Not Casey's close friends. Mostly people who used to pick him up and ram him into the flagpole.  
  
He opted to stay on the edges of the dance floor for as long as possible without pissing her off. He figured he still had a few more minutes when he felt someone looming over him.  
  
"Nice shirt."  
  
He looked up. Zeke was wearing his usual layered t-shirts and jeans, despite the formal dress code Delilah had tried to enforce for the dance, and was eyeing Casey's pink shirt and pink and gray pinstriped tie with amusement.  
  
"It matches her dress," Casey said, then corrected himself from the lecture he'd heard countless times over the past few weeks. "I mean, it  _coordinates_. It doesn't _match_ , because if we  _matched_ , that would be tacky."  
  
Zeke's raised an eyebrow. "She's getting to you, man. Aren't you supposed to have the secrets to resisting the pod people?"  
  
Casey rolled his eyes. "It matters to her. And she's my girlfriend. If it's important to her ... why  _not_  go along with it?"  
  
"Don't kid yourself."  
  
Casey wasn't really sure which part Zeke thought he was 'kidding himself' about. She was his girlfriend. And he didn't see what it hurt to let her pick out his shirt and tie for a school dance.  
  
"Did you hear what I said?"  
  
"I'm not deaf," Casey said, glaring up at him.   
  
Zeke seemed to find his irritation amusing. "Don't kid yourself about where this is going. She's out of your league," he said.  
  
"I'm not  _stupid_  either." If Zeke was going to talk to him just to be an asshole, he could have at least come up with something original to say. "Look, even if she _weren't_  out of my league--"  
  
"--which she is."  
  
"Yeah, all right, don't rub it in," Casey said, the irritation creeping into his voice. "Even if she weren't -- it's high school. We're  _graduating_  in a few months. This had an expiration date from the start."  
  
"And you're wearing that pink shirt anyway because..."  
  
"There's a good chance I'm getting a blow job in the limo on the way home." He pitched his voice so low that he wasn't sure Zeke could hear him over the music, but Delilah would  _kill_  him for saying any of this to Zeke. "I could have sex with her before the end of the school year."  
  
Zeke shook his head. "You know what I used to like about you, Casey? You may have been the most pathetic loser in the whole school, but at least you weren't a fucking sell-out."  
  
"Fuck you, Zeke. Why don't you go talk about 'selling out' to your buddies on the football team?"  
  
"I work the system," Zeke said. "That's not the same as selling out."  
  
Casey snorted. "Looks the same to me."  
  
Zeke took a step closer, blocking off Casey's view of the dance floor. "If you stopped trying to kiss Delilah's ass for five seconds, you'd realize there are people in the world who wouldn't make you change before they'd fuck you," he said. He leaned down even closer, so that when he spoke, Casey could smell the cigarette smoke clinging to his shirt and Zeke's breath on his lips. "Think about it."  
  
He stood up straight and gave Casey a crooked smile as he backed away. Then he turned and pushed open the gym doors, letting in a gust of cold air before he disappeared.  
  
Casey looked back out on the dance floor. Delilah had finally noticed he hadn't come back. She was looking at him with an annoyed expression and waving him back onto the dance floor.  
  
He took a step toward her, then paused. The door out to the parking lot was stuck, cracked open letting a little stream of cold, winter air in. He loosened his tie and slowly pulled it off, giving Delilah and apologetic look and a shrug before he hung the tie on the door handle and walked outside.  
  
Zeke was leaning against the side of the building, smoking. His head turned at the sound of the door opening, and he looked genuinely surprised to see Casey.  
  
"You lost?" he said, nodding back toward the gym. "The party's inside."  
  
"You said there were people who'd want to have sex with me without asking me to change," Casey said. "You mean someone specific?"  
  
Zeke shrugged. "Maybe."  
  
That was probably the most direct answer Casey was going to get, so he wasn't going to push it. "I thought about it."  
  
"And?"  
  
"I'm not a sell-out."  
  
Zeke stubbed out his cigarette against the brick of the building. "Car's over there," he said, nodding toward the Camero that had replaced his old GTO. "My parents are in Brazil. Want to go to my place?"  
  
Delilah would kill him if he left the dance. She was already pissed.  
  
"Yeah," Casey said. "Fuck yeah, I do."  
  
Zeke grinned. "I was wrong," he said. "She's not out of your league. But you're  _way_  out of hers."


End file.
